White grape
Baroque
How to read this
Capitals mark the stressed syllable. The French r comes from the back of the throat. The recording is the reference.
Baroque is a rare white grape of southwest France; with Chardonnay it is a parent of Liliorila, bred at INRA Bordeaux in 1956 and admitted to AOC Bordeaux in 2021.
Baroque is a white grape of southwest France: the Wine Scholar Guild’s Bordeaux Masters course (2024) calls it native to the Sud-Ouest and resistant to powdery mildew and black rot. VIVC gives it no parents. It is a rare vine, with 94 ha in the world in 2010 and 83 ha in 2016, by the count of Kym Anderson and Signe Nelgen in their 2020 survey Which Winegrape Varieties Are Grown Where? Among its VIVC synonyms are Bordelais, Blanc Bordelais, and Plant Bordelais. VIVC also files Bordelais under Folle Blanche, Mérille, and Fer, so a “Bordelais” printed in an old book cannot be read as Baroque on the name alone.
Baroque enters the Bordeaux family tree through Liliorila. DNA markers confirm the breeder’s record that Liliorila is a cross of Baroque and Chardonnay, made by Pierre Marcel Durquety at INRA Bordeaux in 1956 (VIVC). Liliorila was admitted to the white wines of AOC Bordeaux and Bordeaux Supérieur on March 22, 2021, as a grape of interest for adaptation, and a 2023 presentation by the Gironde Chamber of Agriculture counted about 1 ha planted. The Gironde books record no vineyard of Baroque itself.
The family
- VIVC 6834 marker pedigree (breeder record agrees)
The names
Other names in VIVC: Blanc Bordelais, Bordales, Bordelais, Bordelais Blanc, Boudales, Bourdales, Bourdelas, Folle, Muscadelle De Nantes, Petit Bordelais, Plant Bordelais, Sable Blanc.
In today’s rules
Not named in the rules of any Bordeaux appellation today.
Sources
- Röckel et al. (2026): Vitis International Variety Catalogue, www.vivc.de, passport id 1005 (Baroque) and passport id 6834 (Liliorila), accessed October 2026
- Wine Scholar Guild / Mary Gorman-McAdams MW, Bordeaux Masters study manual, 5th edition, 2024, Unit 2
- Kym Anderson & Signe Nelgen, Which Winegrape Varieties Are Grown Where? A Global Empirical Picture, 2020, Table 13
- Arrêtés of March 22, 2021 homologating the cahiers des charges of AOC 'Bordeaux' and 'Bordeaux supérieur', JORF March 30, 2021
- INAO, cahier des charges AOC Bordeaux (opposition draft after the CNAOV opinion of November 18, 2020; homologated March 22, 2021), ch. I, V.1 a, https://winewitandwisdomswe.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Cahier-des-Charges-AOC-Bordeaux-updated-November-2020.pdf, accessed October 2026
- Chambre d'agriculture de la Gironde, PNDV Tour 2023, 'Évolution et pilotage de l'encépagement' (Charlier, Vecchiato), slide 28, https://gironde.chambre-agriculture.fr/fileadmin/user_upload/Nouvelle-Aquitaine/100_Inst-Gironde/Documents/pdf_home_page_actualites/2023/PNDV_TOUR_2023_Evolution_et_pilotage_de_l_encepagement_CHARLIER_VECCHIATO.pdf, accessed October 2026
- Röckel et al. (2026): Vitis International Variety Catalogue, www.vivc.de, accessed October 2026
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